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The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY SCHREYER HONORS COLLEGE DIVISION OF HUMANITIES, ARTS, AND SOCIAL SCIENCES THE WANDERERS AND THE ANALYTICS: A LEXICOSTATISTICAL STUDY OF SINDARIN AND QUENYA CHRISTIAN BRENDEL SPRING 2014 A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a baccalaureate degree in Communication Arts and Sciences with honors in Communication Arts and Sciences Reviewed and approved* by the following: Sandy Feinstein Associate Professor of English Thesis Supervisor Honors Advisor Holly Ryan Assistant Professor of English Faculty Reader Jeanne Marie Rose Associate Professor of English Faculty Reader * Signatures are on file in the Schreyer Honors College i Abstract Literary analysis of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion has long incorporated an interest in the usage of language in the texts, including the examination of Tolkien’s constructed, fictional Elvish languages. For example, the break-up of language has been seen as a metaphor for the fragmentation of original truth or purity, and the divergence of the various races of Elves is connected to the separation of their languages (Flieger, 2002). In the narrative, the two Elvish languages most used in The Lord of the Rings and The Silmarillion, Quenya and Sindarin, diverge from a shared ancestor, but evolve in isolation from each other: Quenya develops in the heavenly Undying Lands whereas Sindarin remains in Middle-Earth, a land of relative strife and hardship. Although Quenya is a language heavily influenced by the divine beings who shaped the world, it is Sindarin, curiously, which wields power in Middle-Earth, and is often used to invoke magic. The historical development of these languages has been previously analyzed using the comparative method of historical linguistics, first by Tolkien himself and later by linguists such as Allan (1978a, 1978b, & 1978c) and Salo (2004), who reconstruct the shared ancestor language and examine the relationship between related words or cognates. However, lexicostatistical methods of linguistics—which provide measurements of the rate of lexical change (Swadesh, 1952; Lees, 1953) and the degree to which the vocabularies of two related languages differ (Petroni & Serva, 2011)—have not featured in these analyses of the Elvish languages. Using these methods, this study calculates the rate of decay of the Elvish languages and examines the lexical distance between Quenya, Sindarin, and the root forms from which the words of both languages descend. The results suggest that Elvish decays more slowly than real-life languages, losing only about 6% of core vocabulary per millennium compared to about 20% for natural languages (Lees, 1953). The relatively conservative nature of Elvish can explain Quenya’s usage as a language of history. Additionally, the analysis of lexical distance suggests that Sindarin is closer, or purer, in form than Quenya to the hypothetical roots of the ancestor language. Sindarin, therefore, may be more connected to the source of power in Middle-Earth. These results can be used to inform an understanding of the link between the decay of the Elvish languages and the deterioration of the Elvish race, to examine the relationship between language and magic in The Lord of the Rings, and to offer new insights into literary analysis of Tolkien’s works. ii Table of Contents Abstract .......................................................................................................................................................... i Table of Contents .......................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments ........................................................................................................................................ iii Preface .......................................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3 Chapter 2: Background ................................................................................................................................. 6 Grounding Middle-Earth ........................................................................................................................... 6 The Silmarillion .................................................................................................................................... 6 The Lord of the Rings .......................................................................................................................... 12 Linguistic methodology .......................................................................................................................... 16 The comparative method ..................................................................................................................... 16 Lexicostatistical methods: glottochronology and lexical distance ...................................................... 19 The structure of the Eldarin languages and the reconstruction of Proto-Eldarin .................................... 23 Quenya ................................................................................................................................................ 24 Sindarin ............................................................................................................................................... 29 Common Eldarin ................................................................................................................................. 30 Chapter 3: Methodology ............................................................................................................................. 37 Chapter 4: Results ....................................................................................................................................... 41 Results of glottochronological analysis .................................................................................................. 41 Results of analysis of lexical distance ..................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 5: Implications ............................................................................................................................... 46 Appendix ..................................................................................................................................................... 52 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................... 62 iii Acknowledgments Several faculty, staff, peers, and family members have had a lasting effect on my life. A section that begins to adequately express my gratitude could fill another 70 pages. I would like to take the time to thank those whose assistance most directly enabled me to write this thesis: My parents and grandparents, for putting books in my hands, no matter how rapidly I went through them. My mentors at the Smithsonian, Gabriela Pérez Báez and Ives Goddard, as well as the co- directors of the Natural History Research Experiences program, Elizabeth Cottrell and Gene Hunt, and the coordinator, Virginia Power, for giving me the summer of a lifetime. Leendert Plug, for helping me understand phonological theory, integrating me into the discourse of linguistics, and enabling me to get the most out of my academics abroad. Neal Woodman, for his shrewd advice in helping me conceive the statistical framework of this thesis and for all of his support before, during, and after my time at the Smithsonian. Cheryl Nicholas, for being an unerring ally, immeasurable mentor, and ceaseless supporter of both my personal and academic life, and for opening my eyes to the panoptic world. Holly Ryan, for her unending enthusiasm, encouragement, and dedication, even when I would be a little slow or be a little late, and for helping me to think about it. Jeanne Marie Rose, for her uninterrupted interest and involvement in my career and life, for showing me the power of rhetoric, and for helping me face the monsters at home and abroad. Sandy Feinstein, for guiding me on life’s journey to Paradise and inspiring me to drag on, for completing the quest when defeat looked certain, and for helping me back from Mordor. 1 Preface My interest in Tolkien’s world grew, as for many other students I know, alongside my interest in linguistics. When I first read The Fellowship of the Ring in 2002, I was a kid who was interested in languages: I enjoyed my German course, I devoured the Teach Yourself Latin book my grandmother bought for me, and I began noticing curious similarities on my own—why does German Bruder look a bit like Latin frater?—but it was through my subsequent reading of Tolkien’s other works, like The Silmarillion, that I discovered that these interests were encapsulated by the labels of philology and linguistics. I was captivated from an early age by the various appendices and essays that Tolkien had written concerning his fictional languages. Every word he constructed was made with intention, and these words fit into the world he was building: the vocabulary of his languages, from the enigmatic Elvish to the malicious Black Speech, was not randomly chosen, but seemed to have evolved organically and according to set
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